by Michael Hurd

Created on: April 26, 2008   Last Updated: May 07, 2008

When did our farms stop being green? A while ago, I had the opportunity to drive through Kansas to visit an account in Garden City. I made two mistakes on the trip. One was leaving my window open as I passed a stockyard, the other was being downwind of the smell and dust cloud with the open window. At first, I thought the stinging in my nose was from the overwhelming mix of fermenting urine and dung, but a few moments after frantically rolling up my window, the burn was still there. It continued all the way into town and only faded after blowing my nose several times and actually rinsing my nostrils with water from the truck stop's bathroom sink.

Subsequent trips into the heart of America's bread basket revealed just how brown our farming system really is. Repeatedly the two lane roads in Kansas were blocked by caravans of giant wheeled tractors or long haul truckers belching hydrocarbon laden exhaust. Most were loaded with thousands of gallons of chemistry that is ending up on our food, in our children and in dark recesses of the soil where long forgotten formulas wait to combine with the new science to create God knows what. Would this Frankenstein solution give birth to some unknown biological aberration? I don't know, and I'm pretty sure the farmers don't know either. At the end of the day my clothes would have a peculiar smell that blended all the odors of our industrialized agriculture system into one malignant, pervasive stench. It took multiple washings to get it out.

Isn't it concerning that two hundred years ago the organic purity of our agricultural products was better than it is today. Why is that? Back then it seemed a farmer needed to utilize every asset properly in order to produce a quality crop. This kept his farm productive enough to support his family and community. He wouldn't dare risk poisoning his soil with experimental fertilizers or tainting his milk with feed he didn't grow himself. His generation and the ones before him took the time to watch, listen and learn the balance that was natural to the land.

Where did the green go? We could spend millions of dollars finding out, but if there isn't already a deep concern in the community it would be wasted money. When I went into Garden City on that first trip, I asked a local about the smell. He said that you couldn't smell it after a while, "You just get used to it." When I asked if he thought it was unhealthy, he shrugged and walked away shaking his head.

With all of our abilities, why can't we implement a community based farming system that would be worked and monitored by the people that consumed its fruits? It would reduce costs and the carbon footprint of transporting crops to market while restricting fluctuations in harvest or disease. More importantly, this would generate a natural communal concern for the organic quality of our crops. We would reap what we sow. Without that deep concern, we will keep going farther and farther away from the green fields that once nourished our nation. There may be a time coming when we pray, not for our food, but for protection from it.

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